Blues winger Vladimir Tarasenko has decided to change agents according to Bally Sports Midwest’s Andy Strickland (Twitter link). After being represented by Octagon’s Mike Liut, he will now be repped by Paul Theofanous of TMI, LLC, who represents several prominent Russian players including Artemi Panarin, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Semyon Varlamov. The timing of the switch is a little odd as Tarasenko has two years remaining on his current contract which means the earliest that he could sign an extension with St. Louis is July of 2022.
Elsewhere around the NHL:
- The AHL is considering adding a play-in round for their playoffs, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported in the latest Saturday Headlines segment (video link). It’s unclear if the idea is for next season or for 2022-23 when Seattle’s affiliate in Palm Springs becomes the 32nd team in that league, meaning that half the league will make and miss the playoffs. Currently, their postseason format in a normal year is the top four teams in each division get in with no Wild Card which is a bit different than the normal format for the NHL’s playoffs. The AHL is often used as a trial balloon for ideas that could one day make their way to the NHL and this could be another one of those.
- A decision has still not been made about whether the winner of the North Division will be able to host games in their home city or be forced to relocate to a neutral site in the United States, notes Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link). There continues to be a mandatory quarantine period for anyone travelling from the U.S. to Canada and a special exemption would need to be granted from the Canadian federal government to allow some of the games to played in Canada. LeBrun suggests that a decision will need to be made by the start of the second round so there should be more news on this front within the next week or so.
- Wild defenseman Carson Soucy will miss tonight’s fifth game against Vegas due to an upper-body injury, notes Sarah McLellan of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He has logged just over 13 minutes a game on their third pairing through the first four games of the series. Prospect Calen Addison, who got into three games back in February, will take Soucy’s spot in the lineup and make his playoff debut in the process.